Chapter 370: Arrival in Space
"Dad!" Aboard the Kusanagi, which was still ascending, Cagalli watched the explosions on Kaguya Island and cried out in unbearable grief, breaking down in tears.
On the Huayan, Tolle took a moment to check the display on his status panel. His MS and MA piloting skills had finally reached Rank A.
His six attributes—shooting, melee, technique, reaction, accuracy, and evasion—had all exceeded 201.
From now on, he could finally pilot A-rank machines with peace of mind, without having to stay stuck using B-rank units.
Just as Tolle was spacing out—
Kira suddenly walked over and patted him on the shoulder. "Tolle, don't daydream. You're more familiar with this place—hurry and take us somewhere to prepare for acceleration shock protection.
And have the Huayan take off as soon as possible. Staying in one place like this isn't a solution either."
"Huh?" Hearing Kira's words, Tolle immediately felt completely lost.
But he quickly reacted. During ascent, the Ahhab reactor's gravity system had been activated throughout the entire ship—even the hangar, which normally didn't use artificial gravity.
Tolle smiled and said, "We've actually already started accelerating upward. Pretty impressive, right? You don't feel even the slightest bit of acceleration, do you?"
"We've already started accelerating? That's impossible—there's no sensation at all," Kira said, staring at Tolle in disbelief. He then looked at Athrun for confirmation, wondering if he had misheard.
Athrun could only shake his head helplessly as well, clearly not believing Tolle either.
"That's because this ship is equipped with the latest gravity engine. It generates a gravity field throughout the entire vessel, reducing the G-forces—units of stress on the body during high-speed movement—that occur during acceleration, minimizing harm to the human body."
Tolle explained with a smug expression.
Athrun said in shock, "Orb's technological level has already reached this point? That's just unbelievable."
Kira nodded in agreement, then asked suspiciously, "Tolle, you're not messing with us, are you?"
"Is that something worth joking about?" Tolle looked at the two of them with the disdainful gaze of a smug idiot king. "Don't believe me? Fine—come on. Follow me to the bridge and see for yourselves."
Tolle then led the two of them onto a transport cart driven by a Haro support robot, quickly heading toward the bridge.
Along the way, Athrun looked at the Haro robot—which was noticeably larger than the one he had made himself—and pointed at it as he asked, "Is that… a Haro?"
Tolle felt a bit awkward. In the Gundam world, aside from Gundams themselves, Haro was practically the most iconic mascot. He really had no choice—after all, what he'd drawn from the lottery was a Haro-version quantum computer.
But then a thought struck him—this was another perfect chance to stab Athrun verbally.
"Haha, yeah, it's also a Haro. Pretty similar to the ones you made for Lacus, right?"
Kira, completely unaware, added another blow as he looked at Athrun. "Yeah, I saw a lot of Haros like that at Lacus's place too."
Athrun was reminded of his former fiancée. For some reason, his nose suddenly stung again. He replied awkwardly, "Yeah… it really does look similar. Just a bit bigger."
Tolle suddenly realized that perhaps due to the influence of the original body, he had always liked taking verbal jabs at Athrun, constantly mocking him with sarcasm.
After all, the original owner of this body had been personally killed by Athrun. It seemed like this was a hurdle he'd never truly get over—maybe he'd be sniping at Athrun for a lifetime.
Soon, the three of them arrived at the bridge.
"It looks just like the Archangel's bridge," Kira couldn't help but remark as he took in the familiar surroundings.
"Of course it does. The bridges of the Huayan and the Archangel were both built based on the Kusanagi's design."
Tolle then proudly pointed at the scenery outside. "Take a look—do you think that view is fake? Does something fake look like that?"
Watching the sky rushing past at high speed outside the window, Kira and Athrun finally believed Tolle.
"So it really is like that… amazing."
"Yeah. I never imagined Orb's technology had already become this powerful."
Standing by the observation window, Kira and Athrun looked at the rapidly passing sky, marveling together at the lack of any acceleration sensation.
But at that moment, Miriallia spoke to them with a tearful expression. "Tolle, Kira… Orb… Lord Uzumi and the others… they're all gone."
Beside her, Julia added grimly, "Representative Asuha, Lord Sahaku, and the councilors who stayed behind… they activated the self-destruct of the Dawn Society and the mass driver… they perished together with the Dawn Society."
Although Tolle already knew this would happen, he still put on an expression of utter devastation. "How could this be? I thought that if they stayed behind, at worst they'd just be detained by the Earth Alliance… I never imagined they'd make such a sacrifice for us."
Hearing this news, both Kira and Athrun were deeply shaken as well. They couldn't believe that Uzumi—who had been chatting and discussing things with them not long ago—had just sacrificed himself like that.
The ship was filled with a heavy atmosphere of grief. No one knew what to say or what to do.
Several dozen minutes later, the Archangel, the Kusanagi, and the Huayan all successfully broke through the atmosphere and arrived in outer space near Earth.
Watching the Archangel jettison its auxiliary propulsion equipment, Tolle said to Kira and Athrun, "Let's go help too. The sooner we finish assembling the Kusanagi, the sooner we can leave this area and find a safe place to rest and regroup.
And we should also go comfort Cagalli. After all, her father just…"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
Kira and Athrun nodded sadly in unison, then followed Tolle back to the Huayan's hangar once more.
But upon entering the hangar this time, they felt somewhat uncomfortable with the sudden loss of gravity.
Using too much force with a single step, Kira suddenly drifted outward and asked in confusion, "Why is there suddenly no gravity here again?"
"For the convenience of MS maintenance in space, the hangar's gravity system is usually left inactive," Tolle explained.
Athrun nodded thoughtfully. "I see. That's really a very considerate design."
Tolle pointed through a window to the automatic repair bay next door, where M1A Astray – Duel Equipment units were being assembled, along with several already-produced remote shields. "Look—that's the automatic production and installation assembly line on the Huayan. Without gravity, its working speed is extremely fast."
"So that's how it is." x2
Kira and Athrun both looked like country bumpkins seeing the big city for the first time, staring at the rapidly moving mechanical arms and the large number of Haro support robots busily at work.
Tolle couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
Another trip to the grand garden, bringing along two buddys.
---
[Thanks for reading! Support future releases and read more at patreøn.com/craxx_real.]